Scratch notes in vim

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While coding, sometimes I need to quickly take notes to capture random thoughts. Mac's Notes used to be my default go-to app. However, wouldn't it be nice if I can take scratch notes inside Vim so it won't disrupt my flow?

Well devs, if you're wondering the same thing, you're in for a treat! Vim has a built-in ability to write scratch notes and here is how you can do it too!

Before we start, let's make sure we are on the same page. In my ideal world, a scratch note needs to:

1. Not be saved into our directory (otherwise we are creating new file)
2. Not get lost when hidden
3. Be quick to access

Powered by :new

Vim's scratch note starts from :new command (:vnew works too), a command to create new window.

Once a new window is generated, we need to add additional setups:

:setlocal buftype=nofile
:setlocal bufhidden=hide
:setlocal noswapfile

I will explain what they do:

1. setting buftype=nofile will tell vim that this newly-created buffer should be considered nofile type. If you noticed in buffers list (:buffers), originally our new file is listed as "[No Name]". After adding :setlocal buftype=nofile, it will now be listed as "[Scratch]"! This means Vim categorizes any nofiles as scratch file type.

2. Adding bufhidden=hide will keep it persistent when the buffer is hidden. Without this setting, if your current scratch buffer gets hidden by another buffer, it will disappear... forever 😱😱!! Adding bufhidden=hide prevents this so it is accessible until we exit vim.

3. noswapfile prevents swapfile from being generated.

Improvements

Although I think this capability is great, it is still not quick to access. We have to call 3 setlocals each time we generate new scratch notes. Wouldn't it be nice if we can setup our vim to automatically perform those setups?

After playing around a bit, here's an example script I came up to address that issue. Add this inside your .vimrc:

function! s:ScratchGenerator()
  echom "Creating scratchy..."
  exe "new" . "__Scratchy__"
  echom "Scratchy created!"
endfunction

function! s:ScratchMarkBuffer()
  setlocal buftype=nofile
  setlocal bufhidden=hide
  setlocal noswapfile
endfunction

autocmd BufNewFile __Scratchy__ call s:ScratchMarkBuffer()
command! Scratchy call s:ScratchGenerator()

What's going on here? I'll start from the end:

command! Scratchy call s:ScratchGenerator()

This adds a new command :Scratchy. When we invoke it, it calls ScratchGenerator function, which creates a new file named "__Scratchy__".

autocmd BufNewFile __Scratchy__ call s:ScratchMarkBuffer()

This is an autocommand that gets invoked if new buffer file (BufNewFile) is created and that buffer is named exactly "__Scratchy__".

Source your .vimrc. You can now create a scratch note by typing command :Scratchy from normal mode!

To access it even quicker, you can add shortcut.

I like to keep it memorable, so my shortcut choice is Ctrl+s (for scratch). The mapping is:

nnoremap <C-s> :Scratchy<CR>

Now every time I have an itch for scratch notes (pun intended 😃), I can just press Ctrl+s!

Alternatively, there is a vim plugin called scratch.vim with more feature. Experiment to create your perfect scratch note!

That's it! Now you can scratch that off your list!

Resources

• :h new, then search for "scratch" (/scratch)
• scratch.vim
• Another, simpler scratch.vim